


Stay With Me

by Flutiebear



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Angst, Because Erik's angst is fun to write, Break Up, Childhood Sweethearts no more, Eavesdropping, M/M, Post-Break Up, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-07 01:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16398833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flutiebear/pseuds/Flutiebear
Summary: "Stay with me." Two characters experience two different heartbreaks at the hands of the Luminary. Spoilers for Act 2 in Chapter 1; spoilers for the beginning of Act 3 in Chapter 2. (The two chapters are narratively separate but thematically linked, so you can read one without reading the other.) Maybe more to come?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Erik stumbles on a conversation--and a heartbreak--he wasn't meant to see. A quick little Erik/Luminary drabble. Takes place toward the end of Act 2, after Erik's personal quest is completed. Spoilers abound.
> 
> A quick note: My headcanon for why The Luminary is a silent protagonist is that he's mute. He hears just fine, but he can't talk, so he uses sign language to communicate. 
> 
> Oh, I'm on Tumblr too! Same alias. Feel free to reach out there, if you like.

You didn't mean to spy on them. Really. But you caught the flash of steel out of the corner of your eye, and your heart skipped a beat, because of too many years on the streets, chased by tin soldiers and pointy sticks—too many close calls, and calls that weren't close enough—and that's when you spot _him._

More precisely, him and Gemma, chatting under the shade of an old apple tree.

Alone.

You tell yourself, as you creep closer to them, unseen, unremarked, that there's no need for this guilt weighing you down. Keeping the Luminary safe is your job, isn't it? And marking where he is at all times has become so much of a habit for you that it might as well be instinct. He is alive because of that instinct. You both are.

Still, you know you're intruding on a private moment, and you know that's wrong. Yet you watch them anyway, your chest squeezing painfully.

You can't help but notice how he leans into her when he talks, how his hands shift closer to his body, each roll of the wrist and fingers becoming more fluid and relaxed. Less authoritative. More… _intimate_.

You've only seen him talk that way before to you, and only when it's just the two of you—which it rarely is anymore. 

However, you can't even spare a thought for those far-gone days, because now he is saying something to her that you can't quite see, and she laughs—oh, how she _laughs_. Tosses her whole head back, so you can see her teeth catch the early morning sun. Her hand drifts to his shoulder, where it lingers, a fraction of a second too long.

He does not shake her off.

You want to look away. But you can't make yourself. The practical, pragmatic side of you—the side that has kept you alive all these years—it forces you to watch, to understand.

_This_ is where he belongs, it tells you. With her. With Cobblestone.

Not with you.

He deserves it. He deserves happiness, maybe more than anybody left in this ruined shell of a world. And one day, after all this is over, he will come back here to rebuild and reclaim what is rightfully his. He will get his second chance at a simple life. A house, a dog. A doting wife. And you?

You will—

Go back to Mia, you suppose. Plenty for you and your sister to rebuild and reclaim between the two of you; there are decades of trauma and heartbreak that will take a lifetime to sort out. That's second chance enough. More than you deserve.

Even if your soul will remain here, thousands of miles away.

Gemma takes a lock of her flaxen hair in her hands and toys with it. Then she looks at him through her lashes and says something that makes her blush so furiously, it's as if someone poured boiling water down her collar.

The Luminary's hands fall to his sides. There they stay for one heartbeat, then two. Three.

Eventually, he speaks.

You don't see what he tells her, but her expression hardens a little; her eyes catch the horizon and stay there. Maybe he's told her that they're about to set off in the morning again. That she has to wait just a little while longer for his return.

Without another word, he walks away from her. She waits until he's out of sight before her shoulders sag and shake. Then she bends at the knee. She buries her face in her hands.

You leave her to her grief. You are the wrong person to offer her comfort, anyway, since you're the one taking him off in the morning. It's your fault she has to wait. It's your fault if he doesn't come home.

 

You catch up to him on the hill by his mother's house. His cheeks are pink, his hair windswept. He looks like he stepped right out of a storybook, or a heroic mural.

It makes you realize that one day, if you all succeed, they will paint murals of him, too. You can even see it in your mind: Shoulders squared, armor blazing. One hand outstretched to the sky to welcome the lightning, with which he shall banish the darkness.

The same hand he uses to stir his tea and eat his food. To sign your name.

You won't be in those murals. It'll be like you were never there at all.

Finally, he notices you.

"Erik," he says, smiling. His gestures are soft. Relaxed. You can't let yourself think about what that means. "Just the person I wanted to see."

"I thought I saw you talking to Gemma." It isn't a lie, not really. "Is everything okay?"

He sighs.

"No. But it will be." He sits on the ground, stretching his legs out before him. "Come. Sit with me."

It's not really a request, but even if it were, you know you could never turn down anything he'd ask of you. You clamor over to him and sit cross-legged beside him.

His body leans ever so slightly toward you. Maybe he doesn't realize it, but you certainly do. You can feel the heat radiating off him as surely as if he were Mount Fuji.

"What was wrong with Gemma?" you ask, even as you dread his answer. 

"Nothing. She just had the wrong idea, that's all." He sighs again, and it sounds like it comes up from beyond his toes, from the mountain itself. "It's never like this anymore, is it? Quiet. Peaceful."

It isn't what you expected him to say. You don't know what you expected, but it wasn't that.

"Well," you force a chuckle, "we _are_ in the middle of saving the world, in case you forgot."

"I mean, between us." His cheeks are still pink, maybe even pinker than before. A lock of hair has caught on his lip, and it takes everything in you not to reach out your fingers and swipe it away. "It's never just—you and me. Not anymore."

Your voice sticks in your throat. "Lots going on," you manage.

He nods. "I know. I just—" As he signs, he stares down at his hands, as if they've begun moving on their own accord. "I just miss it, that's all. I miss you. And me. Together."

"I miss you, too," you say frankly. "Lots of good times we've had."

Then he looks at you, really looks at you, and something flickers to life inside of you that you have desperately tried to squash. You know that this can't end well, not for you, because you're not the protagonist of this tale and you don't get the girl and the dog and the happily ever after. One day, the two of you will part, and when that day comes, you will shatter as surely as Erdwin's Lantern did.

But for now—maybe you don't care. For now, you will stay by his side for as long as he'll have you. You'll take comfort in the way he's looking at you like you're something precious, and you will the relish the gentle, reassuring weight of his knee against yours.

"Stay with me," he says.

You don't know what to say, so you take his hand in yours.

He doesn't pull away.

"Always," you say, softly as a prayer.

His fingers squeeze your own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last conversation between Erik and The Luminary. Spoilers for the start of Act 3. 
> 
> Warning: This is me at my most self-indulgent, trying to work through my feelings on the Worst Plot Twist Of All Time. You've been warned.
> 
> (Oh, and just a reminder: My headcanon is that The Luminary is mute, but not deaf. So he can hear perfectly fine, he just uses sign language to communicate. Yay for silent protagonists.)

 

And then he turns to you.

"Erik." The Time Sphere glowing behind him like a halo. It's hard to make out his features, his expression. He has become a light-rimmed shadow, as if he is already gone. "What do you think I should do?"

"Do you want my opinion," you try to keep the bitterness and heartbreak out of your voice, and you fail, miserably, "or my permission?"

He steps forward, closing the distance between you. Nobody else can see or hear your conversation. Nobody else matters. "I want to know your mind. Always."

"I don't know, man." Your hands become fists, your fingernails digging into your palm. "I think maybe, for once in your goddamn life, you should think about what's best for you, and not what's best for other people. Maybe you've earned that much."

"Are you saying that because you believe it? Or because," his hands shake as he signs, "because it just happens to be what you want as well?"

You grit your teeth. He's right, of course. You're shit at hiding what you think, especially from _him._

Of course you want him to stay. Desperately. Every particle of your body, every fiber of your being, is straining towards him right now, crying out: _Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me._  

"It's the truth. You deserve to live your own life."

"My life? Heh." He squeezes his eyes shut, as if staring into a light that is too bright. "What is that, I wonder?"

Then he opens his eyes, and through the sheen of unspent tears, you can see how bright and beautiful they are. Like stars; like light that travelled across the universe just to be here, at this moment, with you.

"I had so many plans about what I would do after all this was done with. Where I'd go, and with who. But," he looks away, "then the World Tree fell, and I failed. My life—whatever it was or was going to be—it all ended that day. My life ceased being my own the day the World Tree fell."

"It's back up, though! We restored the World Tree! We took care of everything." You fight the urge to grab his shoulders and shake him, hard, or maybe to grasp him so tightly that he can't pull away. "Your work is done."

"But everybody is still dead. Veronica. That nun in Cobblestone who saved us. The baby in Arboria." He leans toward you, his expression as wild and desperate as you feel inside. "I feel them all, every day. They weigh upon me, pushing me down, until I can't even see Yggdrasil's light anymore. If I could save them—" He swallows. "Erik, I have to try. You know I have to try."

"Goddammit, man. Haven't you done enough?"

And even as you say the words, you know they're precisely the wrong ones to say, because people like him never feel they've done enough. They give of themselves, and they give and they give, and it's never enough. That's why you love them—why you love _him—_ because you are selfish and he is not.

"What if you could make it so that you never gave Mia the necklace. Wouldn't you do it?" But it isn't a question, not really, because he knows exactly how you will answer.

You swallow around the lump in your throat. "That's a low blow."  

"Wouldn't you?"

Your silence answers for you.

"Then you understand."

"No, please. Please, goddammit, please just listen to me." You say his real name, the name he told you once, long ago; the name you only use when it's just the two of you, late at night, tangled in each other. But he barely even stirs. He barely even blinks. "Yes, you failed. We all did. But you can't run from your failures. Our failures make us who we are."

He shakes his head.

"Even my failures aren’t my own anymore." He touches his forehead to yours, and his signs grow small and close, even too small for the space between your bodies. "I know how you feel about me. And," he inhales, steeling himself, "how I feel about you. But how, Erik? How can I tell that mother and father in Arboria that what we share is more important than saving their newborn's life?" 

You try not to cry, because that wouldn't help anything, because you don't want to fill the last moments you have together with tears.  

"I promised you, man." The tears come anyway. "To the bitter end."

He smiles and you can barely see it. "It's feeling pretty damn bitter for me. How about for you?"

"Stay with me," you beg him, and you hate yourself for even saying the words, but you have to, you can't bear this, your heart will surely shatter—

"I will, my love." He puts a hand over your heart, as if he could hold it together himself. "Here."

He presses a kiss to your forehead. His lips are warm and soft and gone too soon.

Then turns away before you can gather yourself to stop him.

"This isn't goodbye," you shout at his back. "This isn't the end."

You're not sure he heard you, because suddenly the tower is filled with light, and when it fades, he is gone.

"It isn't the end," you say, because you sometimes you need to lie anyway, even if you're shit at it, even if nobody believes you.

Because sometimes if you tell a lie enough, it becomes the truth.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man. Fuck Act 3, amirite?
> 
> Oh hey, if you want to break your heart? Leave the Tower of Time before breaking the Time Sphere and read what Erik tells you in Party Chat. HAHAHAHA *sob*.


End file.
